A Mother’s Day Wish

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I’m sure that, like me, many of you are thinking about all the wonderful women whose time with their children was cut far too short after a breast cancer diagnosis. For me, it was the grandmother I never met.

Since we started the Love/Avon Army of Women last October, we’ve had one volunteer after another tell me that they decided to sign up for the Army of Women because their mom or grandmother had had breast cancer or because they were a mom and they feared their daughter would one day be diagnosed with this disease.

There were women like Samantha who told me:

I just had a little girl last year in October. Her grandmother sadly passed away from breast cancer before she even had a chance to hear the wonderful news. I am becoming a volunteer for both of them. Let’s fight this battle together.

And women like Jeanne, who wrote:

For Pearl (my Great Grandmother), Millie (my Grandmother), Jacqueline (my Mother) â€¦ all of whom died of this dreadful disease I’ve joined this Army to fight this fight. And for Jennifer, my niece, in the hope that she will never be afflicted with it. This disease has taken a huge toll on my family and I hope to live to see it eradicated. God’s Speed.

And Theresa, who said:

Being 43 and newly diagnosed with breast cancer, I can’t help but think about all the special women in my life and how I never want them to have experience this (especially my two young daughters). It is these women, and others, who are on my mind when I think about the work that the Foundation has done and what we need to do next to move breast cancer research forward even faster.